There are default settings for character sets and collations at
four levels: server, database, table, and column. The description
in the following sections may appear complex, but it has been
found in practice that multiple-level defaulting leads to natural
and obvious results.

CHARACTER SET is used in clauses that specify a
character set. CHARSET can be used as a synonym
for CHARACTER SET.

Character set issues affect not only data storage, but also
communication between client programs and the MySQL server. If you
want the client program to communicate with the server using a
character set different from the default, you'll need to indicate
which one. For example, to use the utf8 Unicode
character set, issue this statement after connecting to the
server: